


Post-Op

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For ComFest and a P/E/N prompt by kanarek13: <i>Neal and El bring Peter home from a hospital (injury, surgery, I leave the reason he ended up in a hospital up to the author) and in the safety and privacy of their home they can finally let go of all the angst and uncertainty of the past few days/weeks.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Post-Op

**Author's Note:**

> The original prompt is [here](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/133333.html?thread=1048021#t1048021).

Peter was being released from the hospital today. That was good, right? 

Neal told himself it was good. 

He ought to be feeling -- well, something other than what he was feeling. Happy? Relieved? Elated? And he was sure he felt all of those things, on some level, but the predominant emotion was the same one that had consumed him for the last two days, ever since he'd seen Peter white and weak, post-surgery. It was an emotion he coudn't even put a name to: a lost, helpless feeling.

It felt as if the supports of his world had come unmoored.

The fundamental problem was that Peter -- Peter was _strong_ ; he was in control; he was the pillar on which Neal leaned when he needed to.

Peter wasn't supposed to be pale, and so weak he could barely sit up on his own. It had been all Neal could do not to run out of the room yesterday. He'd managed not to; he was fairly sure that he'd hidden his discomfort well, all things considered. He wanted to be there for Peter. It was just ... he wasn't sure if he could.

In the elevator, Elizabeth took his hand, wrapping her warm fingers around his, and leaned into his side. "Before we get to Peter's room, you might want to stop looking like your dog just died," she murmured.

Neal put on his best con-man smile. El quirked her mouth. "That won't fool Peter and you know it," she said, and kissed him lightly on the lips. Then she drew back and looked at him, and her eyes softened. "Peter's all right, you know. He's going to be okay."

He still found it unnerving to be around people who could read him so readily. It left him torn between wanting to run and hide, or reciprocate with a sort of emotional honesty that he'd previous only given to Mozzie, and occasionally to Kate. Honesty won, to an extent. "How are you dealing so well?" he asked as the elevator opened on Peter's floor.

She kept his hand in hers as they walked down the corridor. "Every day I send both of you off to work, knowing that you might not come back. This is ... this is simple, compared to that. And ..." She paused, dragging him to a stop so she could look up at him again. "You have to remember that Peter and I have been doing this for well over a decade now. I stayed up with him all night after his mom died. I took care of him after he was poisoned on the Novice case and after his car crash. He, in turn, brought me crackers and soup and cleaned up some pretty unpleasant messes the week I came down with the worst case of food poisoning of my life."

He knew she was trying to be supportive, but mostly it just stung, the reminder that the relationship she and Peter had was built on a foundation so much deeper and more extensive than the one he had with Peter, or with her. "And you're telling me all of this because ..." Neal prompted.

"Because this is how relationships work." El touched the tip of his nose with her finger. "Everyone is weak sometimes. Spouses see each other at their best and worst. It'll be your turn someday, and we'll be there for _you_."

And with that she turned and led the way into Peter's room. Neal stood for a moment before following her. She tossed around things like that so casually -- _spouses_ , she'd said, and he could tell that she was including him as readily as Peter.

Neal was used to being the whirlwind sweeping other people around, but ever since he'd met Peter and Elizabeth Burke, he had found himself the one caught up in their jetstream. Every time he thought he was ahead, he found them in a completely different place than he expected. It was exciting and exhilarating and wonderful -- and sometimes it absolutely terrified him.

Peter still looked wan, but less deathly ill than yesterday. At least he had a little more color than the sheets. "Ate breakfast this morning," he informed El as she leaned over for a kiss. At the same time, his hand snaked out, stealthily but surely, to clasp Neal's. Neal squeezed back.

"What did you have?" El asked, brushing his hair back from his forehead.

Peter looked slightly evasive. "Jello and a cracker. Half a cracker," he added, compelled to honesty in classic Peter Burke style.

"Still a ways to go before you'll be back up to El's famous pancakes, I see," Neal said.

Peter smiled and ran his thumb over Neal's knuckles.

He was clearly feeling better, at least somewhat. Though it would be hard for him to look _worse_ than he had the day before, when he'd been so pale he was nearly translucent and barely able to stay awake for part of a conversation. Still, there was still something fragile about him, something breakable. He looked ... _older_ , Neal thought, and hoped his face didn't show just how much that scared him.

Neal and El helped Peter get dressed in the loose slacks and oversized sweatshirt that El had brought from the house. He had to pause for a rest halfway through, and the effort left him exhausted; he sat on the edge of the bed, wilting slowly onto Neal, while El went to see about signing the discharge paperwork and finding a nurse with a wheelchair.

"I hate this," Peter mumbled.

He didn't specify what he meant by "this", but he didn't have to -- Neal could tell that the helplessness was wearing on him more than the post-surgical pain and discomfort. He'd been obstinately using the bathroom rather than a bedpan; Neal had heard from one of the nurses that Peter had nearly fainted the first time he'd gotten out of bed. At the moment, Neal could tell that Peter was trying to stay upright and not lean on him, despite swaying slightly where he sat. So Neal edged up a little closer, until Peter's body was a warm familiar weight against his side, and quietly laced his fingers through Peter's on top of the rumpled sheets.

"It's not forever," Neal said, as Peter's head drooped onto his shoulder. "You'll be a pain in the ass of this city's hard-working white-collar criminals in no time."

Peter made a small sound that might have been a laugh. "Pretty crazy, huh?" he murmured. "Everything we've been through, everything that didn't take us down, and I get laid low by something as ordinary as gallbladder surgery."

"Every superhero has a weakness," Neal said.

Peter snorted.

 

***

 

Peter fell sleep on the drive home, but insisted on walking on his own into the house -- slowly, pausing frequently on the short flight of steps up to the door. Once inside, Neal intercepted an eager Satchmo and fended him off, while Peter stared woefully up the stairs to the bedroom.

"Did we have to buy a house with so many stairs?"

"Stairs are supposed to be good for you," El said. "The post-op instructions say that light exercise is recommended. Required, even." She placed a hand under his elbow. "Right now, why don't we light-exercise you upstairs to bed?"

Neal hovered underneath all the way up the stairs, just in case he needed to catch anyone, then went down to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water and -- what else would an invalid need? They'd gotten Peter's pain prescription filled at the hospital pharmacy, though Peter insisted that he wasn't experiencing much pain -- of course, being Peter, he _would_ say that.

Neal had to admit to himself, after the third time he opened the same cabinet, that he was dragging his feet over going back upstairs because it would mean facing Peter's weakness and illness head-on. There were no convenient buffers here. No nurses, no onlookers. Just the three of them.

He took a deep breath and brought the glass of water upstairs. He found El turning down the sheets in the bedroom; there was the sound of running water from the bathroom.

"Is he taking a shower?"

El shook her head. "He said the nurses helped him with that this morning. Right now he's just getting comfortable, and then I think we could all use a little --" Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh no."

Neal flinched. "What?"

She reached out to touch his arm. "Oh, don't worry, it's nothing to do with Peter. It's only that with everything going on the last few days, I just realized I forgot to order the flower arrangements for the Chang wedding, and it's this weekend. I'm going to run downstairs and get on my laptop for a few minutes. I'll be right back up."

With that she was off, pattering quickly down the stairs.

Neal set the glass of water on the bedside table, took off his jacket and tie, and then went to hover outside the bathroom door in the hopes of being useful. Instead he found Peter halfway down the hallway, headed back to the bedroom. He reached for Peter's arm; Peter glowered at him. So he settled for sticking close by Peter's side in the event of a sudden fall.

"Neal, stop that."

"I'd rather be accused of hovering than of not being there when you land face-first on the bedroom carpet."

"I'm not going to do -- that thing you said." It wasn't a good sign when Peter didn't even have the energy to banter properly. Instead, he sank down on the bed.

"El is downstairs doing email." Which, Neal realized belatedly, didn't make El sound very caring. "I mean, she had a very urgent business email to send, and she'll be back up as soon as possible."

Peter's smile was tired, but genuine. "Neal, my wife has a life of her own. So do you. I'm not going to fall over dead if the two of you aren't underfoot 24-7. In fact, as soon as I get settled up here, I'm sure you have other things to take care of."

"There's nowhere I need to be more than here," Neal said, and realized as he said it that he meant it with all his heart. The look on Peter's face -- surprised, and then soft -- was more than worth it.

Neal sat on the bed beside Peter and slid an arm around him, leaning his head against Peter's. They'd gotten so used to being careful in public that it was still hard to let down their guard now that they no longer had to -- but they were home now, he reminded himself, and it didn't matter. He'd been afraid of this, but he realized now that there was nothing to fear. It was just himself and Peter, the same as it had always been. They'd been comfortable with each other even when they hardly knew each other, let alone now.

He kissed Peter's temple, and they leaned together, cheek to cheek, before Neal pulled back. "Are you in any pain? I brought a glass of water in case you need to take a pill or anything."

Peter shook his head. "Just tired. I still can't believe how much this has wiped me out."

"You'll get a sexy scar out of the whole deal, though," Neal offered.

"It's laparoscopic; there isn't supposed to be much of a scar." Peter stirred enough to pull up his shirt and display the small incisions, held together with butterfly sutures.

Neal leaned down and brushed a kiss across the unbroken skin between incisions. It was hard not to notice that Peter smelled ... not bad, exactly, but _odd_ , a lingering hint of disinfectant and some other, indefinable hospital smell. It was like the way he smelled when he came in from a cross-country flight, as if the airplane smell had settled into his hair and skin.

But mostly he smelled like Peter.

Peter's hand settled on Neal's head, fingers brushing gently through his hair.

They were still like that -- Neal's face resting against Peter's stomach; Peter's hand in Neal's hair -- when El came upstairs again. Neal heard her padding footsteps, heard them pause in the doorway, heard her small intake of breath. Then the bed sank under her weight, and he felt an arm go across his back, as one was certainly sliding around Peter's as well. El's hair tickled Neal's ear.

"Come on," she whispered, her voice rich with love and affection. "Let's lie down for a while."

Together, she and Neal got Peter settled in bed, then slid in on either side of him. They were all still mostly clothed. But there was something impossibly comfortable and intimate about it anyway. The blinds were closed, admitting only slivers of afternoon light and the muffled sound of traffic outside.

"Do you need anything, hon?" Neal heard El ask Peter quietly.

Peter made a small "hm-mm" sound, then murmured, "I have everything I need right here."

Neal turned his head so that he could nuzzle against Peter's neck, until he found just the right spot, his cheek pressed into the pillows, breathing into Peter's skin. He curled his arm over Peter's shoulder and let their bodies settle together. He couldn't see El, but he could feel the way her weight dipped the bed; he could smell her perfume and knew that she was there, on Peter's other side, a second bulwark against the world.

"Love you," Peter whispered, so faint it could barely be heard.

"Love you," they both whispered back, to him and to each other.

Neal let the tension bleed out of him, let his body relax. It was okay. They'd been through worse; they'd go through worse again. But right here, right now, it was okay.


End file.
